Silent Musings
by wellnothingmuch
Summary: There is no plot, no story, nothing. It's just a night with Nico di Angelo's thoughts. I was just practicing my writing and this turned out.


It hurt sometimes, the way people died. The way they just disappeared from the sunlit world as if they never existed. The way they spent the rest of their existence in the dark void of the Underworld, never to breathe the sweet air again, never to feel the warmth or cold, never to touch or taste or smell. It hurt because sometimes, just sometimes, he imagined himself as one of them.

It was just another night of wakefulness, of fitful tossing and turning of the sheets. The ship heaved along on the tired waves of the sea, rolled across the dark, swirling mass of water and sea spray that sprawled below it. He dragged his exhausted form out of the bed, and walked barefoot toward the open deck, stealthily, silently. The night was asleep, not a single star winking out of the dark blanket of the sky. He walked over to the railing, resting his pale hands on the scarred wood. His eyes swept across the sea and sky, the horizon invisible, everything dark as oblivion. Only his skin shone against the wood, now yellow, now white.

It was nights like these that troubled him. Nights like these that forced him out onto the deck, into the hot, humid air clinging to his skin like another layer of clothing. Nights when he couldn't stop thinking about his past, about his life, changing like mouldable waves of the sea. Sometimes he was a troubled fourteen year old, with a haunting past and an unpredictable future. Other times, he was a tired seventy year old, with a heart as dark and scarred as the wood against which his hands rested, glowing in the night. He didn't know what others thought of him, and he knew he shouldn't care. He didn't care most of the time, but sometimes, very rarely, he just couldn't help it. He didn't want to come across as helpless, weak and needy. And yet he didn't want to come across as aloof, cold and menacing. What he would have given, at that moment, to have someone to talk to. Really talk to. Not a friend, but a confidante, family. It took him a moment to realize what he needed was Bianca.

He tore his eyes away from his hands lying on the railing, from the silver ring glinting cruelly in the dark. He looked up, and into the sea. After a few minutes of staring, he was able to see those minute details only he noticed. The gentle push of the black waves, a lone star glowing faintly at the corner of his eye. He had come to realize that it was only the smaller details- the contrast of his sickly skin against Hazel's dark one, the determined set of Jason's jaw, the way the sun caught in Percy's eyes-that really mattered. These small things, insignificant to all eyes but his- and maybe Annabeth's- that really kept him sustained. He rested his skinny chin against his bony knuckles. He closed his eyes, and saw the images of Tartarus branded across the back of his eyelids. He didn't panic like he used to before. He was used to them now. Tartarus was a hell worse than hells. It had broken him, then reconstructed him into someone else. Tartarus had become a part of him as much as he had become a part of it. Nothing else should matter anymore, except that he was alive, safe. It shouldn't, but it did.

Like the small things that sustained him, it was small things that broke him too. Small things like the way Hazel drew back from him sometimes, like she was scared of him, the way Jason looked at him, like he was a kicked puppy, Leo, Frank … all of them, scared. Scared of him. He hated himself. He hated what he had become.

A slow wind started up behind him, lifting the thick coils of the dark mess that covered his head. The sea breeze started up at odd times such as these, the middle of the night, the break of dawn, late afternoon. It was uncharacteristic, but these were magic waters. And there, with the wind ruffling his hair in a way so reminiscent of Bianca's and the relaxing sound of the sea waves, the ship lulled him into another restful slumber, his lips tilted into a rare smile. And no one saw but he lone star that twinkled in the silky folds of the night.


End file.
